Sunstrike_The next gripping Commander Shaw thriller

by Philip McCutchan

  “Don’t,” she said, sitting up.

  “Put a nightie on or I may not.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. As my secretary, Miss Mandrake, kindly do as I say and ring FH.” I got out of bed and went for my shirt and pants and strapped on the shoulder-holster with the Colt. Miss Mandrake did as bid, still nude, and told me the duty officer had promised cooperation but advised I stretched the hour as long as possible, with which I concurred.

  *

  After a suitable delay, and with full route instructions from Miss Mandrake, I drove out of Avebury in the TR7, leaving peace and slumber behind me in the homes of the nine-to-fivers, and turned along the A4. I pulled into a lay-by on the south side of the road, just beyond a small house; on the other side Silbury Hill loomed through the night, high and dark and filled with ghostly overtones from centuries and cultures long, long past — Silbury was a barrow in its own right, a round barrow, Miss Mandrake had told me while I filled in time to Focal House’s behest, stuffed with long dead bones so far as was known, a hundred and thirty feet high of them. Some barrow; West Kennet, long not round, was much, much smaller, she’d said, little more by comparison than an extended hummock into which you walked at ground level. One end had been cleaned up for visitors and all you could now see were the racks, so to speak, where the bodies had been placed in ancient times. From the lay-by I went through an iron swing gate, the sort cows and sheep can’t negotiate, and set off along a path across a field, using a torch to help me, not making any secret of my coming. There would have been no point in that. I didn’t enjoy that walk towards the site of age-old rites and obsequies. The loneliness was immense: Wiltshire is a quiet county and one of large open spaces and I could fancy the Ancient Britons closing in with clubs and spears and animal skins from all around, weird shapes materialising from the mists of time, seeking out the stranger who would desecrate their awful burial chamber. I came to a second swing gate, and went through, keeping to the footpath that ran between barbed-wire fences and took a turn towards a long, steep climb between the cornfields. Miss Mandrake had said the long barrow was just the other side of this hill’s crest and had added a descriptive comment: “Round barrows, round skulls. Long barrows, long skulls.” It all had to do with Man’s development over the early centuries, but at this moment it struck me as merely creepy and I gave a slight shiver and brought up my automatic in a self-protective gesture.

  A last swing gate after seven minutes’ fast walk from the A4 and there was the long barrow. It loomed to my right, grass-grown, silent in the night’s darkness. Nothing moved except myself. A touch of friendly normality was provided by the Department of the Environment, a notice warning persons that it was an offence to injure or deface the stonework. I hunted around for the entry, not immediately easy to find, and located it behind a sort of protective screen of standing stones not unlike some of those at Stonehenge not so far away as the crow flew across Salisbury Plain.

  I stopped and called out. “Is anyone there?” My own voice was scarifying as it shattered the intense silence. There was no answer, and I took a step forward, and went in, shining my torch ahead. I saw a well-trodden mud floor, and stone walls, and stone chambers, deep recesses that had borne those racks of the dead, only now there were no dead, just spirits and presences from the other world, and in my fancy a smell of death and decay.

  So far as I could see, nothing lived. Maybe, even though I had delayed, I’d got there first … or maybe I’d been too late, and the bird had hopped the twig rather than take any further risk. But it was no twig when it happened, and no hopping took place. I had called again, loudly, and whether or not my voice, repercussing in that desolate chamber, had caused something to shift, I know not; but just ahead of me and to my right, something dropped and landed with a nasty thud on the stone floor: a Chinese, or anyway an Oriental, small and dead. I felt a genuine rise in my scalp, as though my hair were about to take off, a most astonishing feeling. Through the man’s chest was a long, thin sliver of stone, the instrument of his murder. Blood dripped from above: I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but it’s possible his clothing had been soaking it up and only his sudden fall had made it spill over. I stepped across the body and went ahead, checking through the rest of the barrows opened-up length.

  Nothing.

  When I turned back I saw the men: four of them, each with a 9 mm Soviet Makarov in his hand, Never mind the outnumbering: I made a sudden dive behind a projecting wall, thrust my gun round, and fired in the hope of hitting someone. I didn’t pull it back quite fast enough: there was another explosion, like an H-bomb in the enclosed space, and the Colt spun from my hand and pain shot up my gun-arm from the sudden jerk.

  “Come out,” a voice called. The accent was indeterminate but none of the men had looked Oriental. “If you don’t come out, we’ll come and get you and we won’t be making it easy.”

  I shrugged: it was a battle lost. I came out.

  They stared at me. “Commander Shaw, I believe?” one of them said.

  “If you say so. And you?”

  “Never mind that. Walk forward, hands in the air, no sudden movements. Quickly now, you’re late and we don’t have all night.”

  I thought, no you sure haven’t. Any minute now … and a little delay might help, of course. I said, “Just a moment. Who was the body?”

  “Never mind that either. Just move forward and walk to the entry. We’ll be behind you and there’s another man outside, with gun.”

  “What then?”

  There was a laugh. “You come with us, to be put out of circulation.”

  “Why not do it here?”

  “First, you talk. And I say again, time’s short. Move!”

  There was nothing else to be done. I went forward carefully. As I neared the entry, the four men closed in behind. Emerging, I met the gun of number five, a heavy man with heavy scarring. I saw him clearly in the torch beams of the thugs behind, and I recognised him instantly though I kept this fact out of my face. He wouldn’t expect to be recognised; I’d never met him and the recognition was from many photographs. The name was Jacob Dzerny, a Pole from Ruda Slaska, and he was a WUSWIPP man — not a scientist, just a nasty little thug, one of the gunmen of the organisation’s killer squads. My face expressionless, I moved past Jacob Dzerny and felt his gun move into my backbone as I did so. I was pushed out past the guarding stones, standing like huge tombstones — which in a sense, I suppose, they were — and told to turn southwards, away from the A4, over a perimeter fence. With all the men closed in around me, I trudged across a field going I knew not where and praying that the FH boys would show before it was too late and that when they did show they would have a care for what might happen to me. Too many guns were too close. We trudged on and a light rain began to fall, a soaking kind of drizzle. Down the slope of a field, through a hole in a hedge, into another field, a reasonably flat one. I had begun to suspect a helicopter and I found confirmation: the machine waited, silent and looking like a great fat bird in the middle of the field, a black shadow outlined against the sky beneath the falling rain, no lights. I was urged towards it in a bee-line: the situation seemed hopeless but situations often change fast, like this one did. From behind us, not very far behind, a voice snapped, “Hold it!”and we all swivelled to stare into the barrels of two FN general-purpose combined machine-guns and rifles as supplied to NATO. Simultaneously more men dropped from the helicopter’s belly and we were surrounded. The surprise was complete, not a shot had been fired, and I felt a nice warm glow at the efficiency of the organisation I had rejoined. The first man out of the helicopter was known to me: Bill Cane, a former police inspector from the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary. I gave a sigh of relief and said, “Well done, Bill.”

  “No bones broken, Commander?”

  “None. How about your chaps?”

  Cane grinned. “No trouble. The two villains left in charge aren’t so happy, but they’ll live.”

&n
bsp; “You made it down here fast,” I said. Cane said he hadn’t really; he’d happened to be in Devizes on a job and had been contacted via Le Marchant Barracks which, though not in use as such any more, maintained some kind of military presence, and army co-operation had been provided. I asked, “How about the pilot?”

  “Fully functional.”

  “You finished in Devizes, Bill?”

  “Yes. All tied up just before your call came in.”

  I nodded. “Right. Embark all prisoners, put a gun in the pilot’s back and fly the lot into London.” The roof of FH had the facility for landing and take-off of helicopters. “I’ll not be with you,” I added, “seeing as I have some unfinished business in Avebury. Tell the duty officer I’ll report in early.” I gave Cane a full summary of the night’s events for onward transmission to FH, watched the embarkation and the scowls of fear, anger and defeat, saw the flap in the belly shut and secured for take-off, then beat it before the gale started from the rotor blades. The rain had done its work meantime: the grass was wet as hell and my advance upon the A4 was uncomfortable. When I found the lay-by again Miss Mandrake’s TR7 had vanished, and I cursed uselessly. The villains had evidently left a man behind to remove the car after I’d got out, rather than leave it like a sore thumb for snooping police patrols. Sets of master keys they might have had, but I found tracks that could have indicated a breakdown vehicle with crane. Bugger it, I thought, it makes no odds now. I walked the three miles home, squelching, and found Miss Mandrake still awake and touchingly relieved to see me back. She hopped out of bed, brought towels and whisky and ran a hot bath while I told her the facts; I apologised about the TR7.

  “Never mind,” she said. “It was a 6D2 job.”

  “I do mind,” I retorted. “Where’s the nearest railway station? Salisbury?”

  “Swindon.”

  I got into the bath, with whisky glass. She sat on a stool while I soaked and wallowed. I looked at her through the rising steam: she was bloody attractive and she was taking my mind off duty: I should have been focussing my brain on the night’s events, on the villains and what they portended … but that could wait for morning and the interrogation they would be put through in Focal House, where the inquisitors knew their business. I had other things to think about much closer at hand and I couldn’t wait to get out of the bath.

  *

  Miss Mandrake, on my orders, or should I say on my advice, shut up the cottage and came with me to London. A hire car from a local garage took us into Swindon, a railwayman’s town if ever there was one, and the train for Paddington. We left early and it was while we were waiting on the platform at Swindon that I switched on my pocket radio and listened to the BBC News. Inevitably the financial crisis and the strike-and-demo situation took pride of place and I began really listening only when there was mention of a helicopter, and then I sat up, and so did Miss Mandrake, as though galvanised. A helicopter had crash landed on the roof of Focal House in the City of London and had burned to a cinder before the fire-fighting team had had a chance to go into action. That train journey was just about the worst in my life: Bill Cane, not quite thirty, had had a wife and two small children, a happy family. If it hadn’t been for me … but you have to nip off thoughts like those, it can happen to anyone you must tell yourself if you don’t want to go round the twist. I might have been aboard that helicopter myself, but that wouldn’t have mattered except to me, I had no family close enough to worry, I was very much a loner in all spheres really. When we got to FH they told me all the passengers and crew, which included a sergeant and three privates of the Light Infantry from Salisbury Plain, had fried. No one could do more than guess at what had happened. It could have been a simple case of an overloaded machine, or pilot error on the part of a rattled and fearful villain, or there could have been a break-out by the prisoners in an attempt to regain control and deviate elsewhere. WUSWIPP, I knew, was very dedicated and they could even have preferred death to dishonour or something, a kind of kamikaze stunt. I went up to look at the wreckage and the probings of the government inspectors, but I didn’t linger. I felt pretty low; so many caperings about and nothing achieved — except the confirmation, vide Jacob Dzerny from Ruda Slaska, that the WUSWIPP boys were behind what was going on.

  I was called in to see Max. Bill Cane had not used the helicopter’s radio to call up FH whilst in flight, probably fearing an interception, and Max hadn’t any reason, until I reported, to connect the crash with me — didn’t even know Bill Cane was aboard: the burn-up had been very total and only forensic could — might — reveal the villains’ identities. Max seldom showed emotion except when he was angry at inefficiency or bumbledom,so his face stayed impassive. All he did was to grunt and say, “Time you got out there.”

  “Where’s there?”

  “Diego Garcia for a start.”

  I said, “Could be safer than this bloody country.”

  “You’re not dead yet.”

  Elaborately, I leaned over and lightly touched the wood of his desk, which made him hiss like a snake. “Don’t be an old woman, Shaw. Get to Diego Garcia and report to Rear-Admiral Rogers B. Rackstall, USN. And good luck when you come under his overall command — he’s a fire-eater.”

  “Do I come under his command?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow. I really shouldn’t have asked. Max opened like an old-time battleship’s broadside. Overall command meant that I came under US Naval orders in the broad sense, navally,that I must accept US Naval discipline and requirements and dogmas and not use the PX to buy enough liquor to get stewed in public nor fail to show proper respect to the Stars and Stripes et cetera. But I was still basically 6D2 and thus a civilian, and it was up to me to bear this in mind at all times and make my own decision as to when it was time to tell Rear-Admiral Rogers B. Rackstall to get stuffed in the interest of a successful outcome to my mission, which might well be a difficult thing to tell a fire-eater. When Max came to a stop I asked politely, “How do I get to Diego Garcia?”

  ‘There’s a transport aircraft waiting for you at Mildenhall,” Max said. “Let me know as soon as you’ve made your arrangements

  “And Miss Mandrake?”

  “And Miss Mandrake, then I’ll have a car ready.”

  5

  I stood in much need of a home visit prior to take-off since one doesn’t report to a US admiral minus shaver and toothbrush: after my arm had been checked again and pronounced satisfactory the 6D2 Jag took us to our respective flats — Miss Mandrake maintained a pad in Chelsea — and then straight to the A11 for the USAF base at Mildenhall in Suffolk. We reported to the gate and were directed amid many salutes to an office in the control tower where we were taken in hand by a lieutenant-colonel of the US Marine Corps wearing dark glasses, denims and a cap with a long peak like those donned by returning USN spacemen after pick-up from splashdown.

  “Commander Shaw and Miss Mandrake, you’re very welcome,” he said, giving a big smile.

  “Thank you,” I said, noting the way he looked at Miss Mandrake, “and thanks for your co-operation.”

  “Don’t jump the gun,” he said, and gave a hollow laugh. “The trip’s going to be sheer bloody godawful hell. Fuelling stops only, no service, and damn-all comfort. I don’t look forward to it.”

  “You’re joining us?”

  “Sure. Been on furlough in the States. I come from Michigan, going back via here after a week in Paris, France and London.”

  I nodded: he was looking pleased at his luck in having Miss Mandrake for company on his godawful trip. His name, he had said when he introduced himself, was Nicholas Early, and we were to call him Nick. No time wasted, he led us to an equipment store where we were issued with parachutes and other flight paraphernalia, then there was some paperwork and form-filling, signatures to absolve the US Government of any responsibility for our lives, and we were being trucked out to a huge fat-bellied aircraft sitting on the runway like some grotesque old hen. Lack of comfort the man had said, and he wasn’t far wrong. H
ard seats and, on takeoff, much noise and rattle. Off we zoomed from Britain on the first leg. Colonel Early talked, or rather shouted, a lot, largely to Miss Mandrake. From the drift of his conversation I gathered he had not the remotest idea of the purpose of our journey and was under the impression that we were some sort of British Government employees. His tactics with Miss Mandrake were obvious enough to be a warning in themselves and she would know how to look after herself in an unwelcome situation. We sped out over the Channel, headed south-east over France and northern Italy to refuel at Nicosia in Cyprus, then developed some sort of engine trouble and had to put down for a ground repair job at Nairobi, a tedious business with us all standing by the transport getting more and more jaded as we waited for the off. After this lengthy delay followed by a shorter one at Mahe we reached the US base at Diego Garcia around lunch time next day, in intense heat. The base with all its appurtenances looked enormous and expensive, which it was, and the first sign of animation I noticed after we had taxied to a stop was queues of half-naked US servicemen tailing back from the doors of the mess halls as they waited for food, or chow, from the serveries. The whole complex, with its landing strips and fuel tanks, rocket batteries, service roads, tanker terminals, docks, admin buildings and messes and whatnot smelled of metal and sweat and dust and had a look of extreme efficiency and purpose and must have appeared a pretty nasty threat to Russian aspirations in the Pacific — Nick Early had shouted in flight that any God’s amount of Russian reconnaissance aircraft had been over, taking photographs for sure. There had also been some snooping by Russian submarines around the inward and outward shipping lanes.